soy libre is a meditation on generational trauma and the profound, often lonely act of becoming a cycle breaker. It asks: what does it cost to be the one who stops? What does it feel like to stand at the edge of everything your family normalized and choose — with your whole body — to refuse it? And what do you do with the love that exists inside the very patterns you are trying to dismantle?

Drawing on movement vocabularies rooted in both disability aesthetics and Latinx embodied experience, this work refuses to aestheticize suffering. It sits instead with the complexity of inheritance: honoring the ancestors who survived by any means necessary, while making room for the descendants who dare to imagine something different.

Cycle breaking is not a single dramatic moment. It is quiet. It is daily. It is the decision made in the middle of an ordinary Tuesday that no one will ever witness or applaud.

This summer, I am producing a Latinx/e Choreographic Incubator in partnership with Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre as part of the 2nd Annual Latinx Contemporary Dance Festival in Chicago. This incubator is the protected space soy libre needs to become itself fully: studio time to choreograph the invisible, to research the internal reckoning, to find the movement language for grief, love, and the terrifying, necessary hope of believing a story can change.

This work is for everyone who has ever felt the weight of something they did not choose. And it is especially for those who dared to set it down.

About Mark Travis Rivera:
Mark Travis Rivera is a disabled choreographer and creative entrepreneur whose work harnesses the power of stories to create a more inclusive world. At just 17 years old, Mark founded marked dance project (2009-2019), becoming the youngest person in the United States to create and lead a physically integrated dance company for disabled and non-disabled dancers. Through this work, he created space for dancers of all abilities to develop their artistic voices and challenge traditional narratives within the dance field.

As a Puerto Rican queer artist with cerebral palsy, Mark has also been one of the few artistic directors of color working in the disability dance field in the United States. His work continues to bridge the gap between the mainstream dance world and disability dance. More recently, Mark was selected to participate in Ballet Hispánico’s Instituto Coreográfico program, becoming the first physically disabled Latinx choreographer to be invited to the program. He currently serves as Interim Director of Member Services at Dance/USA, the national service organization for dance in the United States. 

Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre (CRDT), led by Artistic Director & Honduras native Wilfredo Rivera, gathers people to contemplate our unique distinctions and common humanity. We offer recognition and respect to the full breadth of our community and nurture empathy and understanding to improve the quality of life everywhere we go. We are proudly and visibly multicultural, exploring the intersection of heritage, culture, and identity through high-quality, original dance and music rooted in diverse and authentic personal narratives.

CRDT proudly presents the 2nd Annual Chicago Latinx/e Contemporary Movement Festival, October 2-3, 2026. Following the resounding success of the inaugural event, this one-of-a-kind festival aspires to honor the wide-ranging creativity of Latinx/e dance makers from Chicago, the greater Midwest, and beyond, offering a platform for artists at all stages in their careers. The Latinx/e experience is beautifully complex and layered — a mosaic of stories shaped by heritage, migration, identity, queerness, resilience, and joy.